GAYLORD NELSON

This oil spill in Santa Monica was the worst in U.S. waters at the time.

California Oil Spill 1969 Disaster FILE - In this Feb. 7, 1969, file photo, workers collect oil-soaked straw from the beach at Santa Barbara, Calif., following a leak from an off-shore well that covered area beaches. The oil spill more than a generation ago helped give rise to the modern environmental movement itself. That still ranks in the top tier of human-caused disasters in the United States and is the nation's third-largest oil spill, behind only the 2010 Deepwater Horizon and 1989 Exxon Valdez calamities. Wisconsin Sen. Gaylord Nelson, an early environmentalist, visited the Santa Barbara oil spill site and later said it inspired him to organize "a nationwide teach-in on the environment." The oil spill was not the only U.S. environmental crisis in the 1960s.